Ally Whiteley

I have spent a lifetime in the industry. I trained with the Bristol & West Building Society and then started a Financial Services Department within a local Estate Agency. After growing the Department, myself and my husband Peter purchased the Financial Services Business from the Estate Agency and set-up our own Financial Services Company. To this day, the Estate Agent that I started with refers business to us and we have advisers located in their offices. We have continued to grow the business to its current size and we are now ‘specialising’ in the different areas of financial planning.

I formerly specialised in mortgages and protection but now, I would say my specialist subject is pensions and investments… I love it all!

I love the variety of clients (friends) that I have, although I seem to have an ever-growing client base of lovely ladies, sometimes I just think that ladies love to deal with ladies. But then I have some lovely ‘couples’ who have become great friends and the younger clients these days seem to be the children who were about four years old when I was giving advice to their mums and dads and now the children are adults and want advice themselves… Goodness, that makes me feel old!

Honestly, there is not much time for interests, but I have promised myself this year to ‘water all of the flowers in my garden’.

I have read a great book, which says that if your life is a garden and you have five precious flowers; husband, family, health, career and friends. You can’t water them all with just one watering can of time. It also asks what would happen if you were only watering one or two!

It has really made me think, so my main focus is trying to balance my life whilst training for the London Marathon, now that has suddenly become a focus. Otherwise, I enjoy keeping fit, playing sport and cooking healthy meals for the family.